SeroTalk Podcast 132: When Braille Strikes Back

Listen to SeroTalk Podcast 132: When Braille Strikes Back

Welcome to yet another edition of the SeroTalk Podcast where Jamie Pauls, Lisa Salinger and Buddy Brannan sit down to discuss the top news stories of the week. Items covered in this week’s podcast include:

How an Indonesian ISP took down the mighty Google for 30 minutes

Obama faces piracy, privacy tests in his second term

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Microsoft’s Surface a balloting device in one precinct in Virginia

Why you can’t vote with your iPhone: There may be an app for it, but there isn’t an appetite

Amazon Prime give and take: get monthly payment option, pay more

New Tech Doctor podcast “Amazon Kindle Accessibility” featuring Lisa Salinger and Allison Hartley

Borrowing Books with Kindle and Prime by Lisa Salinger

Windows 8 may be ‘safer’, but you’re still not buying it

Report: Microsoft Office for iOS, Android could debut early next year

Microsoft Office for iOS, Android to have Office 365 subscription tie-in: Report

Microsoft confirms Windows Live Messenger retirement in favor of Skype

Windows RT 32GB tablets actually only have 16GB of usable space nullifying storage cost advantage over iPad

Surface with Windows RT is No PC Replacement

Taking Surface to Work

5 Reasons Why Apple’s Stock is Tanking

iPad-controlled street lights coming to London

Apple, publishers cut e-book deal with EU regulators – report

BANA Adopts UEB

Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 2 Now Available

Roundabout

Climbing 103 Floors On a ‘Bionic’ Leg

After Paralysis, Blind Man Takes 1st Steps with Robotic Suit:

 

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One Response to SeroTalk Podcast 132: When Braille Strikes Back

  1. Russ Kiehne says:

    I read An Accessibility Review of The Amazon Kindle 3 And after listening to
    2 podcasts from Accessible World, As a blind person, I decided to buy the
    Kindle keyboard 3g with wi-fi.

    With the following shortcuts added I feel this is a step forward for
    accessibility.

    To toggle Voice Guide on and off: Shift plus Space. This means a blind person
    can turn on voice guide without sighted assistence.

    Text-to-Speech: Press Shift plus Symbol to start text-to-speech. This means a
    lot less keystrokes to begin reading. Let me use the example from the review:

    to replay a passage you have missed, First, you pause text-to-speech, press
    back, hit the previous page button, press shift plus symbol to begin reading
    again.
    As you can see the total of 9 keystrokes has been reduced to 4.

    I tested the following to make sure it still works. This is from the book
    Kindle: The Mini Missing Manual:

    In addition to listening to your MP3s, you can also listen to your favorite
    podcasts on your Kindle.
    Note: Podcasts are like portable radio programs. The broadcasters record their shows
    into MP3 files that you can just download and listen to at your leisure. Usually,
    you can download these straight from the broadcaster website or you can browse a
    huge selection of them in the iTunes Music Store.
    The vast majority of podcasts are available in MP3 format, which means they can play
    on the Kindle just fine. But if you load them into the Music folder on your Kindle,
    they’ll play in the same way your music plays: no rewinding, no selecting tracks,
    and no progress indicators. With music that might be okay, but podcasts aren’t just
    background music. Listening to a podcast is more like watching a TV show; you set
    time aside to focus on it. The standard music player in the Kindle doesn’t really
    cut it.
    Remember back in Chapter 4 when you read about audiobooks from Audible.com? On the
    Kindle, audiobooks get this handy little interface with dedicated buttons on the
    screen to control the playback of the book. This interface would work great for a
    podcast.
    Here’s the cool part: you can use the Kindle’s audiobook feature with any podcast
    file. It will show up in your book list just like an audiobook and will play just
    like an audiobook.
    The only thing you need to do is copy the file to the Documents folder instead of
    the Music folder. The podcast appears in your book list ready for you to play.
    If you copy a podcast file to your Documents folder instead of your Music
    folder, your Kindle treats the podcast just like an audiobook.
    Tip: If you really want easy access or the audiobook playback screen for a particular
    song, you can give it the audiobook treatment, too. Copy it to your Documents folder
    and this trick works the same for your song. But don’t use this for your whole music
    library because songs won’t play sequentially and your songs will fill up your book
    list.

    Here’s my out of the box experience:

    After My Kindle Keyboard arrived by USPs, i took it out of the box, When I used
    shift plus space to turn on voice guide, nothing happened. I used the
    instructions Tim Emmons gave in his podcast. That got the voice guide turned
    on. My sighted friend came later in the day and setup wi-fi for me. After
    restarting the Kindle, it updated to the latest firmware. Now shift plus space
    works.

    Using the Kindle users guide, I found I had more navigation options than I
    expected. I could navigate from page to page by pressing space to stop speech,
    Press back, use next or previous page and count to the page I want to move to,
    Press shift plus symbol to start speech.
    I could navigate by chapter to chapter by pressing space to stop speech, press
    back, use right or left arrow, press shift plus symbol to start speech. I was
    happy to see that Kindle speaks the status when moving from chapter to chapter.

    Here’s my out of the box experience:

    After My Kindle Keyboard arrived by USPs, i took it out of the box, When I used
    shift plus space to turn on voice guide, nothing happened. I used the
    instructions Tim Emmons gave in his podcast. That got the voice guide turned
    on. My sighted friend came later in the day and setup wi-fi for me. After
    restarting the Kindle, it updated to the latest firmware. Now shift plus space
    works.

    Using the Kindle users guide, I found I had more navigation options than I
    expected. I could navigate from page to page by pressing space to stop speech,
    Press back, use next or previous page and count to the page I want to move to,
    Press shift plus symbol to start speech.
    I could navigate by chapter to chapter by pressing space to stop speech, press
    back, use right or left arrow, press shift plus symbol to start speech. I was
    happy to see that Kindle speaks the status when moving from chapter to chapter.

    Additional comments:

    Go to… — allows you to move to another location in the item you are reading.
    I use this to go to the beginning or ending of the book.

    You can organize your books by collection as shown below on my Kinble.

    Russell’s Kindle
    Showing All 5 Items By Collections
    Perry Mason (85)
    Hardy Boys (57)
    Kindle User’s Guide, 5th Ed. Amazon
    The New Oxford American Dictionary
    Oxford Dictionary of English
    Archived Items (55)
    THE rAA •r”‘ WORDS In Theaters September 74 Chck for details turns on wireless
    Page 1 of 1

    Here’s an email list you might be interexted in:
    vi-kindle: Visually Impaired Kindle users Group
    Group formed to share tips on using Amazon’s Kindle e-readers accessibility
    features. Independently moderated, not affiliated with Amazon.
    You may join this list at:
    http://www.freelists.org/list/vi-kindle

    I’m happy I made the move to buy a Kindle keyboard 3g with wi-fi.

    Russ

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